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Experts contradict Obama on Islamic terror threat

Terrorism analysts are rebutting President Obama’s assertion that the “scale of the threat” from Islamic terrorists has reverted to pre-Sept. 11, 2001, levels.

“This is a total fabrication,” said Steven Emerson, whose Investigative Project on Terrorism tracks radical Islam. “The ‘scale of this threat’ in the 1990s never closely resembled the terrorist attacks post 9/11. This is an outright lie.”

The Heritage Foundation has been cataloguing foiled terror attacks post-9/11 by Islamic groups. The number: 54.

James Carafano, a military analyst at Heritage, said the 1990s’ numbers “were a fraction of that.”

Mr. Obama on Thursday delivered a speech at the National Defense University that came close to declaring victory over al Qaeda, saying it is now operating franchise groups.

He also declared an end to the global campaign against terrorism, saying the U.S. would focus on individual cells.

“As we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11,” the president said.

Before the Boston Marathon bombing, allegedly conducted by two jihadists, the U.S. was the target of at least five Muslim attacks since 2009 (two of which succeeded) whose plots went undetected by the FBI or CIA: